Chapter 31
Chapter Thirty-One
Lothar
“How much longer will I be confined to this fucking bed?” I growled.
Willow poured out a measure of some foul-smelling shit. “Another day, two at most.” She poured it into a mug with water to dilute the putrid taste and handed it to me. “I know this sucks, but these aren’t normal injuries, so normal rules don’t apply. You need to be patient.”
I chugged back the potion. No, they weren’t normal. I hadn’t healed like I normally did. The lacerations had taken a week, the broken bones, so far, almost two. Due to the prolonged exposure to blessed silver and my injuries caused by a fallen at her most powerful, my body had taken a serious hit.
Being a fucking invalid wasn’t something I’d ever experienced before, and I felt more insane now than I did when my beast had taken over and used me like a motherfucking puppet.
“I put a sleep draft in there as well,” Wills said.
Fuck. “I don’t want to sleep. I want to get out of this bed and find Roxy.”
She sighed and stood. “Well, you can’t, and you haven’t slept for days. That won’t help your healing, and when you are ready to get up in a day or so, you’ll fall over from exhaustion. So stop complaining and go to sleep.”
I’d fallen over several times while trying to leave, reopening my wounds and refracturing my femur. I rubbed my hands over my face. “Has anyone heard from her?”
Willow shook her head.
“Any word from Zenon? Lucifer still hasn’t talked to her?”
“No.”
“What about her granddaughters? Urs? Have they heard from her?”
“No, Loth, no one has.” She gave my shoulder a squeeze. “I promise if we hear anything, you’ll be the first to know.” Her eyes softened. “You’ll find her.”
The door opened and Relic walked in.
“Excellent,” Wills said to him. “You can stop him from trying to get out of bed. And don’t even think about helping him leave, his bones aren’t finished healing.
This is where I remind you of what happened last time.
His bones need another twenty-four hours.
He’ll manage a few steps, then be flat on his back again, and we’ll be back to square one.
” Relic had had a lot more broken bones than me, but his healing hadn’t been hindered, and he’d been back to full strength in a matter of days.
Relic smiled. “His ass will be staying where it is.”
I growled.
They both ignored me.
“I’ve given him a sleep draft, so with any luck, he’ll sleep and we’ll all get a nice break.”
Relic chuckled as she walked out, then sat in the chair they’d put beside my bed. I had a constant stream of visitors, or more around-the-clock guards making sure I didn’t try to go anywhere.
“Anything?” I asked him as soon as she shut the door.
He shook his head. “None of us have been able to pick up her trail. She has to be in another realm or there’s something or someone concealing her.”
“Fuck.” I snarled. “I can’t take much more of this. I need to find Roxy. I need to find my mate. There’s still so much from that fucking day missing from my memory. I know there’s more. I can fucking feel it…here.” I thumped my fist against the center of my chest.
Relic sat back. “I get it. I know what it’s like firsthand, and yeah, I’d lose my fucking shit if I wasn’t able to go after Fern immediately.
At least you know Roxy can protect herself, yeah?
” He leveled me with a stare identical to my own.
“It might take you a while to find her, not trying to piss you off, but Wills is right. You need to let yourself heal or you won’t get far.
One more day’s rest, you’re almost there, and you’ll be good to go. ”
My fucking eyes drooped. Willow’s sleep drafts were strong as hell, or at least the ones she gave me.
She’d knocked me out when they first brought me back here after the fight.
I fought to leave then, even though I couldn’t fucking stand.
In the end, War and Relic had held me down while Willow poured that shit down my throat.
I’d refused it since, which was why she’d taken it upon herself to slip it in my drink.
I rubbed at my eyes. “I can’t sleep right now.”
Relic chuckled. “You sound like one of the pups, you grumpy old fucker. Shut your damned eyes and get some rest.”
My lids drooped again, and I snarled. “When I’m better, I’m gonna kick your ass.”
“Impossible. I’m the newer, stronger, highly improved version of you. It’d be like you trying to win against a supercharged version of yourself.”
Somehow, he always managed to make me smile—even as my head tipped to the side and my body had become a deadweight. I blinked heavily.
Relic stood, lugged my huge ass down the bed, tossed the extra pillow aside, and pulled the covers up. “When you wake up, you can go find Roxy.”
I tried to answer, but only muttered incoherently.
Relic patted me on the fucking head and chuckled. “Sweet dreams.”
The nightmare rushed forward instantly.
Sera shoved me on the bed, climbed up and started riding.
My stomach rebelled. I wanted to throw the fuck up.
Her scent was disgusting and made the churning in my stomach worse.
If Lucifer hadn’t given me a powerful tonic, I would be lying here flaccid and emptying my stomach all over her sheets.
The concoction was the only reason I was able to get hard.
I gritted my teeth when she dug her nails into my chest and moaned.
I was doing this for Roxy. I was doing this for us, so we could be together like Lucifer promised.
I squeezed my eyes closed. I didn’t want to think about Rox, not now, not while Sera touched me, not while she called me hers. I would never be hers.
“Good boy,” she crooned. “You’re mine now, aren’t you, Lothar.”
The door crashed open on the other side of the room.
Sera spun around with a hiss.
Oh fuck. No. I shoved Sera off as Roxy flew across the room with a bloodcurdling scream.
She slammed her fist into Sera’s face with another cry, right as the angel snatched up a blade from the bedside table and thrust it into Roxy’s side, then dragged it downward.
With a roar, I shoved Sera away, grabbing for Roxy, clutching her to me.
She swayed on her feet, then looked up at me, her big blue eyes wide and filled with agony.
She shook her head wildly. “Roxy, please, I can explain—”
“No.” Her hand was a flash of movement, she drew it back, and that’s when I saw the knife she held, a split second before she thrust it into my heart.
She dropped her hand, leaving it imbedded in my chest. I clutched at it, gasping for air. It wouldn’t kill me, but the pain radiated through me so fiercely, I fell to my knees.
She held my gaze, and a tear streaked down her face. “Now your heart feels like mine,” she choked out, then stumbled from the room, leaving a trail of blood in her wake.
My eyes snapped open with a gasp, my hand fisted against my chest.
The dream, the memory, those images flashed one by one through my head.
I slid my hand away and looked down at the darker patch of skin there.
I’d never known what it was. I assumed it had always been there.
There had been nothing special about the blade, it shouldn’t have been able to leave a scar, but it had.
That knife, it was the same one I’d been carrying around with me since, that I hated being without, the same knife Roxy had now.
I rubbed at my chest. I realized I’d been carrying Roxy’s pain around, a physical manifestation of the agony I’d caused her all this time and I’d had no fucking clue.
Roxy had lived with this, these memories, this pain for so fucking long. She thought I’d betrayed her. And I had. I thought I’d felt broken and desperate, the last couple of weeks, but that had been nothing.
The full force of the loss we’d suffered crashed over me, a jagged ball of agony settling like stone in my chest. All this time, since my memories were taken, I’d been pushing her away.
I always pulled away first when she’d hugged me.
I’d avoided her, turned her down when she just wanted to hang out.
Fuck, I couldn’t believe she wanted to be anywhere near me, let alone hug me after what I’d done.
I couldn’t fucking bear to think about it.
My female had been pining for me, for her male, a pathetic fucking male who had betrayed her, and I’d shoved her aside, over and over again.
I would not wait another moment to look for her.
Not one more fucking second. I shoved back the covers and was relieved when there was no shooting pain through my legs and back.
Finally. I snatched my phone off the bedside table and checked the time.
Motherfucker. I’d slept twenty-four hours.
I’d have been pissed, if it hadn’t actually worked.
I felt rested and my body was finally and completely healed. Showering quickly, I dressed, shoved my phone in my pocket, and strode from my room.
“Whoa, where do you think you’re going?” Willow said, walking toward me.
“To find my mate,” I said, with a little more growl than I intended.
She stopped in front of me, her eyes narrowing. “You look a lot better this morning.”
“I am.”
She curled her fingers around my forearm. “Glad to hear it.”
“Thank you for taking care of me. I know I didn’t make it easy,” I said, because I wasn’t sure how long I’d be away, and Willow had put up with me, hadn’t given up on me when I acted like a giant asshole.
“That’s what family’s for, right?” She pulled me in for a tight hug, and when she stepped back, she smiled up at me. “Now go find Roxy and bring her home.”
I nodded and strode up the stairs, through the clubhouse, and headed for my bike.
“Loth!”
I turned to find Relic jogging toward me.
“Good to see you on your feet,” he said when he reached me. “Don’t think you’re going to have to walk far on those newly healed legs, though. Pretty sure I know where Roxy is.”